From thongs to boots, Giants will take whatever works

Updated 10:23 pm, Wednesday, May 28, 2014

The Giants have had thongs. Beards. Enchiladas.

And now cowboy boots.

Much has been made of Pablo Sandoval's recent turnaround. After batting .171 through May 9, he has hit safely in 17 of the last 18 games and is batting .382 since then. He has a career-high eight-game RBI streak. Because he's a Giant, there must, of course, be a lucky inanimate object behind the success.

One day Sandoval tried on Madison Bumgarner's boots, took a picture and then went out and hit a home run.

"You know how baseball players are superstitious," Bumgarner said. "He thought it was good luck. So it's been kind of an everyday thing since then."

Which is fine, except when Bumgarner - a boots-only kind of guy - wants to go home and can't find his footwear. Sandoval was taking them into the dugout and putting them on before at-bats.

"I'd come back in here and say, 'Where're my boots at?' " Bumgarner said. "So I just brought an old pair from home and told him, 'Hold onto these until they stop working.' "

The Giants hope the boots don't stop working. Sandoval's early struggles seemed mental, maybe the pressure of playing for a big contract. Superstitious routines can help a player relax and take a shortcut to the right attitude. So if it's eating chicken enchiladas before a start as Ryan Vogelsong did during the 2012 playoffs or three eggs over easy with grits as Bruce Bochy ate in his playing days, superstitions can be useful.

"But you don't want to get obsessed," Bochy said.

If wearing a teammate's two-sizes too large alligator boots helps his third baseman, Bochy doesn't mind. Except from a fashion perspective.

"It's not a good look," Bochy said of Sheriff Sandoval. But better than some.

"Seeing (Aubrey) Huff walk around in that thong was not easy on the eyes," Bochy said.

Not all his players are superstitious. "It's so easy to get that way, but if something starts creeping in I'll do the opposite," Bumgarner said. "I don't want to depend on something that has nothing to do with what you're doing."

Who knows what other talismans the Giants will find?

"You've got to draw the line somewhere," said Bochy, whose team won a World Series thanks, in part, to a rally thong.